Israel

The Virginia State Bar has sent the following letter to its members: March 27, 2015 Dear Fellow Members of the Virginia State Bar, Certain members of the Virginia State Bar and other individuals have expressed objections to the VSB’s plan to take the Midyear Legal Seminar trip in November to Jerusalem. It was stated that there are some unacceptable discriminatory policies and practices pertaining to border security that affect travelers »

Yesterday we noted the Arutz Sheva story reporting on the Obama administration’s disclosure of formerly top secret data regarding Israel’s nuclear facilities and capabilities. The disclosure came in the form of the declassification and release of a detailed, 386-page report on Israeli and NATO nations’ nuclear facilities and capabilities; the Pentagon declassified only the part about Israel, continuing to classify the parts regarding other countries. The document was quietly declassified »

Reader Martin Karo writes: Arutz Sheva reports on the Obama administration’s release – a broadcast, not a leak – of formerly top secret data regarding Israel’s nuclear facilities and capabilities. The damaging revelations come via the Defense Department’s publication of a detailed, 386-page report on Israeli and NATO nations’ nuclear facilities and capabilities. In an overtly political act, the Pentagon declassified only the part about Israel, continuing to classify the »

David Bernstein highlights the astonishing dishonesty behind President Obama’s latest case of “faux outrage” at Benjamin Netanyahu. The premise for Obama’s outrage is Netanyahu’s statement just before the election that, given regional instability and the PA’s collaboration with Hamas, there will be no Palestinian state under his watch. Netanyahu has since softened this position a bit. But Team Obama harumphs that it doesn’t believe the softened version and that election »

Yesterday the Wall Street Journal’s Adam Entous reported in a page-one story leaked by the Obama administration that “Israel spied on Iran talks with US” (accessible here via Google). John commented on the story here. I want to offer a few additional notes on the story: • This “spying” story was leaked to Entous by “senior White House officials.” The leak complements the Obama administration’s public campaign against the Netanyahu »

The Wall Street Journal reports: “Israel Spied on Iran Nuclear Talks With U.S.” Sounds like a blockbuster, but this is one of those less-there-than-meets-the-eye stories. It begins: Soon after the U.S. and other major powers entered negotiations last year to curtail Iran’s nuclear program, senior White House officials learned Israel was spying on the closed-door talks. The spying operation was part of a broader campaign by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin »

As he works toward a deal blessing Iran’s nuclear program, President Obama has undertaken a full-throated assault on Israel. The Obama administration treats America’s enemies as friends and friends as enemies. It is Obama’s version of “the world turned upside down.” In his column today Rich Lowry draws on the metaphor of the world turned upside down to criticize these developments. Rich’s column is posted at Jewish World Review as »

The West seems to be in the process of switching sides when it comes to Israel and Iran. Negotiations that will lift sanctions on Iran are in the final stages; meanwhile European leaders are discussing the imposition of sanctions on Israel. Moreover, under President Obama, the U.S. is no longer committed to ending Iran’s nuclear weapons program which represents an existential threat to Israel. Instead, it is prepared to sign »

Marco Rubio took to the Senate floor this afternoon to speak about Israel in the context of the Obama administration’s unremitting hostility to its elected leadership (video below). Obama will not forgive Israelis for reelecting Netanyahu or Netanyahu for having the temerity to prevail in the face of his opposition. Senator Rubio is on fire in these remarks as he steps up to trace the history of Obama’s antipathy to »

It was widely reported that, during the last days of the Israeli election campaign, Prime Minister Netanyahu told his supporters that there would never be a Palestinian state as long as he was in office. This provoked howls of outrage, including a threat by the Obama administration to join with anti-Israel forces in the United Nations to press for recognition of a Palestinian state based on Israel’s 1967 borders: [W]ith »

Politico reports on the Obama administration’s reaction to yesterday’s election results in Israel. The Obama administration is fuming, as you might expect. Still, this is deeply ironic: Israel has re-elected a leader who is pro-American, who shares our values, who is popular with the American people–more popular, in fact, than our own president–and our administration is outraged. This is the upside-down Age of Obama. To be pro-American is now bad, »

Benjamin Netanyahu has won; now what? The answer may depend to some extent on what kind of a governing coalition he forms. Will he form one with the major right-wing parties or will he put together a unity government that includes the center-left? Mario Loyola suggests that given the gravity of the threats to Israel’s security, a unity government might make more sense. Regardless of the nature of the governing »

Like the American left, Palestinians aren’t pleased about Benjamin Netanyahu’s victory. But some Palestinian opinion leaders are taking the news more graciously than David Axelrod and, I would argue, President Obama. Evelyn Gordon reports: A veteran Palestinian journalist from Ramallah summed up the prevailing sentiment [among Palestinians] succinctly. “We say all these bad things about Israel, but at least the people there have the right to vote and enjoy democracy,” »

As a bonus to Benjamin Netanyahu’s unexpected victory in Israel’s election, we are treated to the public gnashing of teeth by the American left. For example, David Axelrod tweeted: “Tightness of exits in Israel suggests Bibi’s shameful 11th hour demagoguery may have swayed enough votes to save him. But at what cost?” This is rich coming from Axelrod who, as Mary Katharine Ham points out, “ran a campaign that accused »

I don’t profess any insight into Benjamin Netanyahu’s victory in the Israeli elections yesterday. He will in all likelihood become Israel’s longest-serving prime minister, exceeding the time in office of David Ben-Gurion, and his new term, when he assembles the coalition he needs to proceed, should give him political life after Obama. As John Podhoretz puts it in his New York Post column this morning: “He gambled his entire career »

Benjamin Netanyahu has declared victory in the Israeli Knesset elections. The opposition claims the declaration is premature and, like Netanyahu, its candidate is talking about forming a government. Assuming that Netanyahu and his Likud party have triumphed, the question is why. I’ll leave to Israeli analysts to provide a definitive answer if they can. My suspicion is that Netanyahu owes his victory in no small part to President Obama. From »

The polls have closed in Israel, which means that information on exit polls can now be published. With a major caveat–we have seen in the U.S. how far off the mark exit polls can be–it seems that they look pretty positive for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu: The first exit polls were released Tuesday at 10 p.m. as voting closed in elections for the 20th Knesset, suggesting a surprisingly good showing »